In what way did he expect you to disagree?!?
I assume that he thought I would have advocated hiding under a desk? I'm not sure.
It makes sense to me that there are circumstances where unarmed people attacking a lunatic with a gun -- the 'fight' option -- would reduce the death count: say, locked lecture hall, ~100 students, killer at the front of the hall picking people off. If there's no way to run, and everyone freezes, he picks people off one by one until he runs out of ammo. If the front rows rush him, he shoots one or two of them as they're coming, and then he goes down under a pile of bodies.
But I'm certainly not confident that I'd be able to figure out what the best course of action was in the moment.
2: Perhaps you have a reputation for being unusually valiant.
I mean, I guess you could just start with teasing, you know? Try to get them wound up. Then maybe, uh, I guess depending you could go with kind of a guilt trip, you know? Like, bring up some past transgressions that maybe aren't super relevant. Then at that point I guess you just want to jump right to recrimination and crying.
Think that shooting at that Unitarian Church versus the Batman screening.
A third option is to do something to confuse the shooter, such as take off all your clothes and sing "Tiptoe through the Tulips" as loud as you can.
3
But I'm certainly not confident that I'd be able to figure out what the best course of action was in the moment.
It's a collective action problem. You don't want to be the one leading the charge (or even worse the non-charge).
6: What's the lesson there? Charge a shotgun, flee a semi-automatic?
That's a problem too, of course, but literally knowing when fighting back is a preferable option is tricky itself. The example I gave is pretty clear (you might not be able to get people to actually attack the guy, but it's clear that on average, everyone would be better off if someone did, and even the attackers might not be individually worse off), but a real world event probably wouldn't be that clear.
If anybody starts trying to shoot up someplace I'm at I'll just straight throw a rhino at 'em. A, nobody wants a rhino chucked at 'em, and B, if the shoot the rhino that's super illegal.
If you don't fight back when somebody's shooting at you then everybody else will think it's fine to shoot at you.
hiding under your desk is probably your best option.
11: What if it's that rhino from the Ninja Turtles cartoon? Endangered, yes, but also a supervillain's henchrhino, so probably okay to shoot.
14: I'm pretty sure the rules are different for cartoon turtles. Even Shredder is probably protected by some sort of law.
I found myself around a police officer
I can't actually make a joke work, but something about this turn of phrase is making me think "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend..."
A third option is to do something to confuse the shooter, such as take off all your clothes and sing "Tiptoe through the Tulips" as loud as you can.
This is where everybody carrying iPads fucks you up. In the old days the shooter would have gone down under a hail of bottles of fountain pen ink.
It takes a certain amount of commitment to frisbee your iPad even at a shooter.
I bet you could whip an iPad pretty good, and it has a lot of glass. Or maybe smash it on a desk beer bottle-style and go for the jugular.
I thought about this during one of the school shootings and it struck me that there was quite a bit that could be done in advance of a shooting to improve odds. You could work on window fittings that opened out, easily and quickly. You could do escape drills. There are design and training options.
But I don't believe that people would ever take them seriously, nor put money into doing better a hypothetical future disaster, so I think it is all sorta mute.
20.1: strategically placed claymores, automatic sentry guns, carefully placed trapdoors.
Sifu have you ever actually been in a fight?
Can somebody take a big dump on text for me?
Anyhow, the real secret is to always carry a deck of playing cards.
Oh, and also to know how to fling the playing cards with deadly accuracy.
The safe strategy is to always have at least one Viking berserker in every class. And what is affirmative action for, of not that?
I take it the answer is no. But you are now.
My brother's high school had post-Columbine safety drills that involved everyone going out to hide under the bleachers, apparently. His immediate response was "But if the attacker is supposed to be one of the students, won't he just know now to put the bomb under the bleachers?" Apparently my mom's quick move to confiscate his trench coat wasn't enough to let him escape scrutiny, but he had a point.
You need to distinguish two questions: What should I do if I am present when a shooting occurs? and What should I do if I am present when one of these random spree shootings happens, where the shooter is trying to kill as many random people as he can before killing himself?
The former situation is worth preparing for, and the answer is keep your head down and call the cops. The second situation is actually really rare. If you add the restriction "and there's no way to run" to it, then it's not even worth thinking about. I'd devote the energy to thinking about what you should do if aliens land.
I'd devote the energy to thinking about what you should do if aliens land.
Because this one is totally more fun.
I'd devote the energy to thinking about what you should do if aliens land.
Sic 'em on the spree shooter.
I say take off and nuke the entire school from orbit -- it's the only way to be sure.
C'mon, people! I can't be the only one prepared for the deranged student/associate/all-but-thesis; We've all been there in one capacity or the other.
http://bulletblocker.com/index.html
I think this would be good advice if there were training. I believe that military people are taught that if someone has a gun and they don't, the best thing is not to run, but to tackle the guy, working as a group. But that takes practice (and the belief that others will act as you will), otherwise, you're the lone guy charging a gunman. Not sure that's going to be practical on a college campus.
Actually, the best plan would be to issue each student a tennis-ball sized rock at the beginning of the school year. You could have random inspections, and if everyone in class had their rock, they would get a pizza party! So then, if everyone had rocks, and a shooter came in, everyone could throw the rocks at the shooter, which would give people enough time to rush him or her.
As long as all or most of the people present are males of fighting age, calling in a drone strike would be the solution.
38 would also have the benefit of being legal in Knifecrimea, at least for now.
How many five-year-olds does it take to stop a spree shooter?
42: That's probably on the risk factor list.
I daydream disaster scenarios all the time (and taken a couple work-offered emergency management trainings), but the couple times I've been close, it is surprising how shut down and dumb I've become for a while (2 seconds? 30 seconds? minutes? who knows). I don't know what kind of preparation you have to get to overcome that.
38: You could affix an appropriate rock with an easily removed adhesive to the bottom of each chair.
I'd devote the energy to thinking about what you should do if aliens land.
I hear the key is to leave lots of unconsumed glasses of water everywhere.
45: I'm dubious about this proposal. It seems like you'd have rocks falling down all over the place any time the chairs were moved. If your adhesive was strong enough to prevent this, you'd have the opposite problem of students not being able to get their rocks off.
30
... If you add the restriction "and there's no way to run" to it ...
Flight can pose the same collective action problem as fight. If you are the only one fleeing you may just be ensuring you are the first one shot.
And if there aren't multiple ways to flee you may just be making things easy for the shooter by jamming everyone together in the only available exit.
44: Srsly? That's what repetitive drills are for, so the real thing seems much like a drill and one's brain doesn't shut down. Trouble is, a great many highly intelligent people don't think that will ever happen to them.
You could do escape drills. There are design and training options. But I don't believe that people would ever take them seriously,
I kind of think people here would take them seriously. As in, they are seriously out of touch with grounded statistics about how likely a school shooting is. Eager to take their guns to town. At least a game plan would fill the vacuum.
What one does:
1) Shout "Get 'em!" preferably adding names of people if you know them to break the paralysis.
2) Grab a fat person and push them into the shooter.
3) Disarm, maim, kill the shooter-- whatever it takes.
4) Sign up for some ethics courses, you will be able to discuss the difficult questions with ease.
I can't actually make a joke work, but something about this turn of phrase is making me think "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend..."
I think the joke works better in the porn thread.
maybe we haven't all been in fights but most of us have filled the vacuum I think.
2) Grab a fat person and push them into the shooter.
Maybe the school should be rigged with trolleys in every room that can be aimed at the shooter.
I dunno. People don't seem to do flood drills, and the risk of flood in this town is far higher than shooting spree. Denial is just too strong.
My friend just bought a house with a bomb shelter. I really really want a bomb shelter.
Grab a fat person and push them into the shooter.
I think joke works better in the porn thread.
In Soviet Russia, porn thread works better in joke!
57: Spray champagne into the shooter's genitals?
But has anyone here put a feather inside of a vacuum tube and then flipped it upside-down?
It falls like a rock, in whatever the speed is that everything comes on the ground. I don't remember exactly.
I want to say I learned that in physics, but I think it was biology. Go figure.
1) Shout "Get 'em!" preferably adding names of people if you know them to break the paralysis.
Or if you don't know anybody make up some names to throw the shooter off-guard. "T-bone! Knuckles! Lefty! Bubbles! Get 'em!"
65: Get more practice at the range.
agree. better to learn by doing than sitting on my ass like a spectator.
55: Megan, every place I've worked at in L.A. has conducted mandatory "Get the hell out of here!" drills at least once a year, with alternate routes laid out, with people doing left-behind sweeps if possible, and checking people outside against employee lists.
Has anyone ever got quarters stuck inside of a vacuum hose? I've heard that can happen when you try to do it at home like it's done on TV.
I've heard of vacuums that can clean carpet while embossing the rail, but I only half-believe it.
If you're going to fight, don't forget to deploy a context-specific one-liner. It can be a pun based on one of his personal characteristics or, preferably, based on the weapon/method you use to kill him.
have any of you fellow ever used one of those vacuum things to cut your hair? The adverts say they do it the same every time, but I don't think that's a selling point, myself.
sorry, that definitely should have been fellows.
have any of you fellow ever used one of those vacuum things to cut your hair?
"This bullet 'Flowbee' over, disaffected nerd!" #finishhim
If you're going to fight, don't forget to deploy a context-specific one-liner.
Can't I just use my catch phrase?
Is the Flowbee over? I haven't seen her around after she posted this one.
69: When there was lots of sewing going on here dropped and lost needles would sometimes get lodged in the vac hose. Then the usual stuff would build up around the needle until the air got blocked enough to cause the motor to overheat.
Sweeping the area with a powerful magnet after a sewing frenzy helped but not 100%.
I do hate when that happens. One time the hose was clogged with peanut butter (don't ask me how). But there's always a solution -- doggies love it!
I believe the Punisher gave a piece of advice in one comic that went something like "Gunfight in the morgue, Rule 1: Don't hide behind the thin guy."
Can't I just use my catch phrase?
"It's clobberin' time!"
(Though offhand references to Yancy Street are also apropos.)
I will give like ten dollars to any commenter who tackles a gunman while yelling "SPOOOOOOON!"
Or if you want to pick out a charity in case you die a surprisingly undiginified death that's also fine.
Can't I just use my catch phrase?
"It's clobberin' time!"
"Got any cheese? Hehehsnort"
All my catchphrases are uttered in an Austrian accent. Because I'm a feminist.
undiginified
That's undi-gini-fied, i.e. something that measures the level of underwear inequality within a country.
86: nono, un-[di-gini]-fied: lacking the normal complement of djinn.
All of the students need firearms. Clearly.
Geez people. How much simplier can it get!?~?
Of course one could combine the deadly pun/catch phrase gambits by saying "Eat my shorts" and proceeding to make the shooter do just that.
In my concealed handgun class last weekend, a lady posed the following question:
"So, lots of people think that the economy is going to collapse and the world will go into chaos. So what should I do then?"
She was serious.
I said "Well, if there is anarchy, then nobody will be arresting you! Duh!"
Nobody has suggested shouting, "Who wants to sex, Mutumbo?"???
I believe 89 is very close to the actual position of the NRA.
I believe 92 is very close to the actual position of the NBA.
93:
It isnt very close. It is the position.
My catch phrase is so tremendously obscene that it can't be repeated on the internet.
Everyone imagines themselves as heroes, but very few people perform in the moment. Sometimes people need encouragement. Try shouting "Get him!" while shoving people at the shooter.
My catch phrase is so tremendously obscene that it can't be repeated on the internet.
Not even in the porn thread?
The love that dare not speak its catchphrase.
98: For the more powerful commenter, picking up a smaller passerby and actually throwing them can work as well.
Swing your wife at the attacker, then yell "meet the old... BALL AND CHAIN!"
56 Move to Switzerland if you want a bomb shelter. Every house or apartment building constructed during the cold war and some time afterwards had to have one.
Really? How had I not known that? Mandatory gun under the bed PLUS bomb shelter.
You lived in an old building? You never went down to the basement? You did go down but didn't notice the crazy heavy lead lined foot thick cement doors?
I've not read the thread, and have no experience at all with guns, and assume I'd freeze in fear if confronted with one in earnest. Although when I've been confronted with knives and broken glasses I've managed to keep it together enough to get safely away [not enough to do something dramatically brave or anything]. But I can definitely think of moments in my own life, and friends' lives, where saying 'fuck it' and going for the 'fight' option has saved my arse, or someone else's arse. And at least one occasion where I took the not-fighting option which ended up with me going to hospital, when I don't think fighting would have resulted in a worse outcome, and would at least have given the chance of a better one.
Shorter 106: I can see the wisdom in recommending 'fight' in some circumstances. No idea about guns, though.
The building I lived in had a really, really terrible disco in the basement (from that, I suppose you can figure out where).
Mandatory gun under the bed PLUS bomb shelter.
No wonder the Swiss are such laugh riots.
I just spent a half hour researching whether fire ants can have variance in the toxicity of their venom, because the huge mound I stepped in at 4 o'clock seemed extraordinarily aggressive, mean, and nasty. Dusted, dogs confined. Die motherfuckers.
Worried about the furballs. Back fence has a half dozen chihuahuas and asst miniatures on the other side. They bark murderously at my 75 pounders, with my huge killers growling back and scratching at the fence.
Then the pipsqueaks find a hole, slip through, and all dogs dance and play around until they go back to the other side (usually when I come out) and resume dishing dire threats.
You get an assault rifle but very limited ammunition and even that is under seal. Breaking the seal without a direct order from your military superiors is a felony and you have to present the container for inspection on a regular basis. So not much use against burglars, but pretty good for suicidal spree killers and minor zombie apocalypses.
Hawaiian Punch was goofing around with her milk at dinner and so Jammies took her cup away. As she was wailing, she threatened, "If you don't give me my milk right now, I'm going to tell Mommy that you didn't have a good day at work!"
Ie, not that Hawaii knows some secret that I don't know. That I ask rhetorically "How was your day?" to everyone and Hawaii thinks I'll be really pissed if I get the wrong answer.
||
Is anybody else as excited as I am by the fact that there's a guy on The Amazing Race this season who totally looks like apo? And that his partner used to be the bassist for Megadeth?
No, just me? That's fine.
|>
You didn't give us very long to answer, but yes, probably just you.
I've been confronted with broken glasses a few times, but a bit of electrical tape and a paperclip usually fixed them right up. I wasn't scared at all.
I believe that military people are taught that if someone has a gun and they don't, the best thing is not to run, but to tackle the guy, working as a group.
Not as far as I know. The British Army has a long tradition of having guns and having large groups of guys without guns trying to tackle them, working as a group - and has learned the right lesson from the outcome of these encounters, viz. "always be the guy with the gun".
Unarmed combat training does include disarming people - and it's surprisingly easy to do at close quarters (contact distance) if you do it right.
This being the violence thread, does anyone have any recommendations for a good present to get someone on their graduation from Marine boot camp?
I found a coffee mug with this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt on it:
The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!
but it seemed as if it might come across slightly inappropriate to a recently married woman brought up rural and going to be living away from her husband for awhile. She (and he) would almost certainly be amused, but the 5% chance of offensive seems like too much.
Any other ideas? Practical would be fine, but I have no particular idea what she's going to be doing (I think training as a mechanic in San Diego, but after that I don't know.)
Starting a second household takes stuff; or if she'll be living in furnished quarters, something in the phone/webcam/minutes line for frequent marital converse?
The mug does sound great. With a tiny Teddy bear in it?
It's a great quote, isn't it? You have to love Eleanor Roosevelt.
"I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue:
'No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.'"